Germany’s top banker Josef Ackermann has been asked to orchestrate a private sector contribution to the Greek bailout. The chief of Deutsche Bank has been asked by Wolfgang Schäuble, the German Finance Minister, to co-ordinate a response after complaints by German opposition politicians that banks

The Greek Government has agreed the draft outline of a €24 billion (£21 billion) rescue package, which is expected to include savage cuts in Civil Service wages and state benefits along with hefty tax increases to cut its deficit. Final details of the measures were still being decided last night

The Greek Government has agreed the draft outline of a €24 billion (£21 billion) rescue package, which is expected to include savage cuts in Civil Service wages and state benefits along with hefty tax increases to cut its deficit. Final details of the measures were still being decided last night

The crisis affecting the eurozone worsened yesterday when Spain’s credit rating was downgraded less than 24 hours after Greece was sent into financial meltdown. Fear of contagion gripped Europe’s financial markets when the debt rating agency Standard & Poor’s cut the rating on Spain’s sovereign

In the corridors of the Berlaymont building in Brussels, the home of the European Commissioners and their staff, you hear disparaging comments about the Club Med — the Mediterranean member states, including France, Italy, Greece, Spain and (erroneously) Portugal. EU civil servants see them as

The European Commission today called on credit rating agencies to act responsibly after Standard & Poor’s downgraded Greece’s debt to junk status, sparking a widespread sell-off across world markets. The price of insuring Greece’s debt against default soared to the highest rate in 14 years as the

Greece plunged deeper into financial turmoil last night after its government bonds were rated as junk by financial markets. The Portuguese Government debt also took a hammering after panic spread that a Mediterranean virus of insolvency and bad debts would infect the rest of Europe. Doubts are

Investors fled the financial markets today, spooked by news that sovereign bonds issued by the Greek Government had been declared as junk by a leading rating agency. The decision by Standard & Poors, which also cut the sovereign rating for Portugal, sent investors scurrying for safety, fearing

The German Chancellor was forced yesterday to issue an emergency statement promising aid to Greece — but her words failed to quell bond market speculation that Berlin might not support the eurozone’s €30 billion rescue package. Bond market investors pushed up the interest rate on two-year Greek

The bond markets hammered Greek government debt this morning, raising the cost of borrowing for the eurozone nation above 9 per cent. Investors pushed the risk premium on ten-year Greek notes to record levels of 6.2 percentage points above German bonds. The rate on two-year bonds soared to more